Aviation engines may be divided into two categories: air-breathing engines; and rocket engines that carry an onboard oxidant as a propellant so that they can operate in environments that have rarefied oxygen supply, or no oxygen. These engine categories may further be subdivided into two classes: deflagrative and detonative combustive engines. Deflagrative engines of the air-breathing type are well known and are typically used in commercial jet airliners, for instance. Additionally, deflagrative rocket engines are commonly used for earth-to-orbit boost, upper stage, station keeping and attitude control applications. In such deflagrative engines, the combustion process produces combustion product gases that are propagated at velocities in the range of a few feet per second. These gases provide motive force for a vehicle to which the engine is mounted.
In contrast, in a denotative engine, such as a pulse detonation engine, motive force is provided by combustion products that result from a detonation process. These flame fronts are propagated at velocities very much higher than the flames of deflagrative processes. Indeed, typical velocities are of the order of several thousands of feet per second for a detonative process. Therefore, it may be expected that pulse detonation engines would have the potential to propel a vehicle at very much higher efficiency than possible with deflagrative engines. The present invention provides a pulse detonation rocket engine that generates sufficient thrust for use in a variety of applications.